1. Technical Field
The invention relates to the field of medicinal treatment and in particular to methods for providing a pharmaceutical dosage of thymosin beta 4 to a patient.
2. Description of the Background Art
Thymosin beta 4 (TB4) initially was identified in the thymus. It is a 43-amino acid polypeptide, now known to exist in a number of tissues throughout the body. Several roles have been ascribed to this peptide, and it has been found to be useful in treating a number of conditions where immune modulation, endothelial cell differentiation and migration, T cell differentiation, actin sequestration or angiogenesis would be desirable. For example, TB4 has been used to accelerate wound healing. The amino acid sequence of TB4 is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,297,276, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein.
Obtaining a desired concentration suitable for treatment is difficult when the half-life of TB4 is not great. In particular, dosage administration is not very effective in cases where the dose administered produces a high initial TB4 concentration of the drug which is far greater than the desired concentration and where the concentration rapidly decreases. Frequent re-dosing often is necessary, creating large swings in TB4 concentration. This results in both an inefficient treatment and the dangers inherent with fluctuating or unpredictable concentrations of an active compound.